by Mark Shaw
On the same day, Earl Ruby, still avoiding Kilgallen, met with Melvin Belli. Earl, at Jack’s insistence, explained that his brother was disappointed with the insanity plea. He wanted another lawyer, Charles Tessmer, to be co-counsel. Belli yelled at Earl refusing any consideration of the matter.
While Kilgallen met privately with a Dallas Police Department source, J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson discussed the Warren Commission investigation at FBI headquarters. Hoover also mentioned his displeasure with Kilgallen’s irreverent columns questioning the official account. The Director explained that any FBI information about the Kennedy family was off limits to reporters and the Commission. The Director emphasized again that Oswald acted alone. Hoover said they must head the Commission in that direction and only that direction.
The same evening, Melvin Belli sat alone sipping a drink at a bar in his Dallas hotel. He knew Kilgallen and others might learn his secret: that he was orchestrating, under threat to do so, a trial strategy that, if unsuccessful, could send Ruby to the electric chair. Realizing his integrity had been stripped away, he considered withdrawing from the case but knew such action was impossible. Those who had ordered him to represent Ruby were dangerous men. His only hope was that the convoluted insanity defense might prevail. He needed to convince the jury Ruby was crazy when Belli knew he was not.
At the defense counsel table in an otherwise empty Dallas courtroom, Kilgallen approached Belli’s co-counsel Joe Tonahill with a request in mind. Despite the presence of 400 reporters from, among others, the Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Herald Tribune, The National Observer, Life, Time, and the Saturday Evening Post, she was determined to circumvent Belli’s delay in permitting her an interview with Ruby.
How this happened was a credit to Kilgallen’s ingenuity, her clever ability to slice through any formidable obstacle (Belli had forbidden Ruby to speak to any reporters and the judge had concurred) and get what she wanted. As smart and savvy a journalist who ever plied the trade, Kilgallen had landed on an introduction to Ruby due to her having learned of his friendship with a San Francisco opera singer. Somehow (the circumstances were never revealed), Kilgallen had communicated with the singer and she had asked the famous reporter to give Ruby a message. Armed with information no other reporter had uncovered, Kilgallen developed a plan.
In a videotaped interview (available at TheReporterWhoKnewTooMuch.com), Tonahill, who had apparently gained Belli’s permission for the interview, described how Kilgallen became Ruby’s only interviewer at trial. “She told me she had had a contact with friend of Jack’s from San Francisco,” Tonahill said. “I believe it was an opera singer that he was very fond of. She wanted to pass a message along to him. I told Jack that and he said, ‘I’d like to talk to [Kilgallen].’” Tonahill explained, “Jack had a bodyguard shield around him of four deputy sheriffs sitting behind him and everywhere he went and I told them Kilgallen wanted to ask him some questions and speak with him at recess and that he’d agreed to it. And they said ‘okay.’” Tonahill added, “So when the judge declared the noon recess, Jack went over and spoke with her…in the courtroom right behind his chair where he was sitting…there was a rail there and he got up and she was on the other side of the rail and Jack was on this side and they had a little conversation. I think the press had already left the courtroom.” Asked how long Kilgallen and Ruby spoke, Tonahill replied, “About five minutes.” 23
Dorothy Kilgallen whispers in the ear of Jack Ruby co-counsel Joe Tonahill during Ruby trial.
Tonahill added, “[Kilgallen] started out saying this opera singer in San Francisco had spoken to her about Jack and she wanted to tell him something. I didn’t pay much attention to what they were saying.” Asked if Tonahill knew the name of the opera singer, he said, “No,” but then added, “Jack was pretty enthusiastic about [the opera singer] so they must have been pretty close friends.”
Once the interview began, Kilgallen looked into Ruby’s weary face. She noticed his hands were shaking. She said they chatted for eight minutes. Kilgallen left the courtroom with pages of notes.
In her Dallas hotel room, a perplexed Kilgallen typed her Journal-American story for February 23, 1964. Under the banner “A Dorothy Kilgallen Exclusive,” she chose the headline: “Nervous Ruby Feels Breaking Point Near.” The first paragraph read, “Jack Ruby’s eyes were as shiny brown-and-white bright as the glass eyes of a doll. He tried to smile but his smile was a failure. When we shook hands, his hand trembled in mine ever so slightly, like the heartbeat of a bird.”
Continuing, the article, Kilgallen added, “‘I’m nervous and worried,’ he told me. ‘I feel I’m on the verge of something I don’t understand—the breaking point maybe.’” When Kilgallen told Ruby “I think you’re holding up pretty well,” he replied, “I’m fooling you Dorothy. I’m really scared.”
To explain the circumstances surrounding how she garnered the exclusive interview, Kilgallen wrote:
I had stayed behind because I had been told that Ruby would like to talk to me. In a short while co-counsel Joe Tonahill beckoned to me, and I went up to the defense table. “Jack would like to talk to you,” he said. Jack rose politely to shake hands, his eyes glistening and his mouth smiling but the total effect inexpressively sad. “It’s wonderful to see you Dorothy,” were his first words…
Kilgallen ended the article by writing:
I went out into the almost empty lunchroom corridor wondering what I really believed about this man.
Why Kigallen did not mention the opera singer involved was probably due to her protecting the woman’s identity. Why she made it seem like Ruby asked to speak to her may have been to blunt any disparaging remarks from fellow reporters upset over the special treatment she received since interviewing Ruby was a scoop of immense proportions. Once again, the fearless Kilgallen had prevailed with determination unmatched among journalists of the day.
Meanwhile, on March 4, 1964, as Kilgallen looked on from a front row seat, Ruby trial testimony commenced. The prosecution, led by Henry Wade and Bill Alexander, paraded several police officers to the witness stand. They established Ruby’s premeditation before killing Oswald. Witnesses included Detective Don Ray Archer. He quoted Ruby as saying “I intended to shoot Oswald three times.” When this happened, Kilgallen stared at Ruby. She considered what the true motive might be for his killing JFK’s alleged assassin.
At Belli’s hotel that evening, Kilgallen and Belli discussed the trial. She requested a second interview with Ruby. Belli refused. Before she left the room, he changed his mind.
In the bar downstairs, Kilgallen wondered, as many of Belli’s colleagues did: Why was he forging ahead with the absurd psychomotor epilepsy insanity defense? It made no sense. Based on her observations during the interview, Ruby, though scared appeared mentally stable. Why not simply plead Ruby guilty and let Judge Brown sentence him? Why risk the death penalty when a few years in prison might result if Belli could garner sympathy for his beleaguered client? After all, she knew, Ruby had killed Oswald, the most hated man on the face of the earth.
Proof of Kilgallen’s suspicion about Belli’s defense had first surfaced in a February 21, 1964 column. Recall she wrote, “…Ruby’s plea is temporary insanity and there are a great many things [Ruby] doesn’t remember and isn’t about to.” The “isn’t about to” quote was revealing. It apparently meant she believed Ruby, regardless of his mental state, had to keep certain information secret. That directive, she knew, could only have come from Belli.
While Kilgallen attempted to unravel the mystery of Belli’s defense strategy, at the Justice Department one day later, Warren Commission investigators met with Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. They discussed access to Justice Department files. Under orders from Robert Kennedy, Katzenbach agreed to cooperate with the defense lawyers but only to a limited extent.
Prior to court convening in Dallas, Kilgallen arranged to intervie
w Ruby once again. Before she did so, Oswald’s killer asked Belli to let him testify. Belli refused the request. He explained that the doctors were their best witnesses. He told Ruby he would get “tricked” if he testified. Ruby was upset. An argument ensued. Ruby told Belli that he was not crazy. Belli asked Ruby to trust him. Ruby reluctantly did so.
At court the next day, Kilgallen spoke with Judge Joe Brown. Like others, he was impressed with her celebrity status. He had asked for an autograph. She obliged. He agreed to allow her to conduct the private interview with Ruby away from the courtroom. Fellow reporters screamed at the news. They complained to Judge Brown about the special treatment. He had his public relations man placate them.
A small office nearby was chosen. Ruby’s guards and Joe Tonahill waited outside after Belli had given the go-ahead. Kilgallen spoke to Ruby’s cold-blooded killer for less than ten minutes. To friends, she acknowledged the meeting but, for reasons unknown, never the substance of the conversation. Whatever Ruby told Kilgallen remained a secret with the information noted in her ever-expanding assassination file.
On March 10, 1964, Kilgallen listened carefully to three psychiatrists Belli presented for the defense. They included Yale’s Dr. Roy Schafer. He testified regarding Ruby’s unstable mental state before he shot Oswald. Kilgallen was skeptical of his findings in lieu of the second interview with Ruby.
In her Journal-American story, Kilgallen described Ruby as “a gangster,” referring to her having connected him to the Chicago “laundry shakedown rackets” in a previous December 1963 column. When Ruby learned of her depiction, he told Belli he was “upset” with what she wrote.24
With Kilgallen absent from the courtroom, Dallas Morning News reporter Wes Wise talked to Ruby. Wise asked Ruby if he wanted to testify. Ruby nodded “yes.” He then told Wise, “But Belli knows best.”
At the Justice Department, Robert Kennedy met with Kilgallen’s friend, White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger. Afterwards, he told a colleague that Bobby was the most “shattered man he had ever seen in his life. He [is] virtually non-functioning.” Pulitzer Prize winning author Arthur Schlesinger agreed. He told Salinger RFK refused to involve himself in the question of who murdered his brother. Salinger said Bobby did not want any investigation. He had left Katzenbach to deal with the Warren Commission.
The next day, as Kilgallen looked on, Belli further questioned Dr. Roy Schafer about Ruby’s mental state. While doing so, Belli mistakenly called his client Oswald. Judge Joe Brown shook his head in disgust. This was the fifth time Belli had mixed up his client with JFK’s alleged assassin.
Kilgallen was also curious about Belli’s miscues. In her hotel room, she worked on her book, Murder One. She was still uncertain whether the Ruby case would be included or part of a separate book.
At his hotel bar, a worn-down Belli sat with chauffeur and friend Milton Hunt. In a low tone, Belli startled Hunt confessing, as Hunt told this author, “The Ruby case is fixed; I’m just going through the motions. It’s simply being staged for the sake of publicity.” Belli, according to Hunt, added, “there’s an inside thing, and no way to win, it’s a whitewash.” Troubled by Belli’s admissions, Hunt wondered whether he should pass them along to the court, to Jack Ruby or the Ruby family. He did not do so.
During the late afternoon hours of the 12th, Belli stunned Kilgallen and the other reporters. He formally rested Ruby’s defense without permitting him to testify. After the trial, Ruby affirmed to the media, “I wanted to tell my story.”
Belli’s decision caught not only Kilgallen and the media off-guard but the jury as well. Jury Foreman Max Causey later wrote, “The biggest shock of the trial came…when Mr. Belli rose to his feet and told the court, ‘The defense rests’…I don’t think we were any more surprised than the prosecution. I looked over [at them] to see what they were going to do now, and I noticed that they appeared to be taken completely by surprise.”
In her hotel room the next morning, Kilgallen read the Dallas Morning News headline: “Final Arguments Set in Ruby Trial. Big Question: Was Ruby Crazy?”
23 Told that Earl Ruby denied Kilgallen ever interviewed his brother (“I asked Sheriff Bill Decker and he said she never had an interview with Jack”), Tonahill said, “I don’t know why Earl would make that statement because it’s absolutely untrue. Bill Decker, the sheriff, knew about the interview. The officers told him about it after I told them and they went to their boss and the boss said, ‘Okay.’”
24 Ruby stated in a medical interview, “I did like Dorothy Kilgallen until she wrote a column saying I was a gangster so I don’t like her now.”
CHAPTER 16
On the afternoon of March 13, 1964, Dorothy Kilgallen listened intently as Bill Alexander rose to address the jury. In a confident tone, he said, “I’m not defending Oswald. But American justice demands that he was entitled to protection from the law as a living, breathing American citizen.”
Scowling, Alexander turned toward Ruby. As Kilgallen winced, Alexander shouted at him calling Ruby “the judge, jury, and executioner, one who committed a thrill kill, seeking notoriety.” The harsh words caused Kilgallen to sympathize with Ruby’s plight. Was he also a “patsy,” the same word Oswald had used when questioned about his involvement in the JFK assassination? Was Ruby a sacrificial lamb, the fall guy for those masterminding the president’s death?
After a long recess following Henry Wade’s final argument, Melvin Belli addressed the jurors. Kilgallen took extensive notes. Belli proclaimed the important evidence from the doctors clearly proved Ruby insane. Belli told the jurors Ruby did not belong in prison. Belli asked for justice despite knowing that Ruby was getting anything but justice.
As the lawyers conferred over jury instructions, Kilgallen noticed Jack Ruby sitting by himself in the stuffy courtroom. His shoulders were slumped, his head bowed. Finally, Earl Ruby joined him. The brothers sat arm in arm. Kilgallen reviewed her notes about the final arguments. She realized Belli had never asked the jury to spare Ruby’s life if he was found guilty.
The Ruby jury deliberated on March 14, 1964. Kilgallen sat in her hotel room confronting suspicions that something was terribly wrong with the trial. She sensed that Belli seemed to have thrown the case like a punch-drunk fighter. The telephone rang. The jury had reached a verdict. Racing toward the courthouse, she ran into Belli. Excited, he told her “No jury in the world will convict Ruby with less than three hours of deliberation.”
Outside the courtroom, Bill Alexander told this author reporters surrounded him. One, he said, asked if Belli surprised the prosecution by not pleading for Ruby’s life. Alexander explained to this author that he informed the reporters, “Yes, I am shocked,” while adding that Ruby was “gonna get the chair,” and that he felt “kind of sorry” for Ruby. He said Belli “took a good five-year murder-without-malice-case, and made it into a death penalty one for his client.”
At 11:14 a.m., television cameras were set to record the Ruby verdict. Kilgallen sat nervously with the other journalists awaiting Ruby’s fate. She could not take her eyes off him.
Two hours and 19 minutes after Wayne Causey was selected foreman (not all spent deliberating), the jurors were somber as they filed into the courtroom. They took their seats never glancing in Ruby’s direction. Belli knew what this meant. He turned toward his client and whispered, “It’s bad. Take it easy. We expected it all along and we tried this case for an appeal court. We’ll make it there. I’ll stick with you.” Only half-hearing Belli’s words, Ruby’s face was ashen, any hope of freedom dashed.
A minute later, Foreman Causey handed the verdict form to Bailiff Bo Mabra. He in turn passed it to Judge Brown. After shuffling through the pages and reviewing it, the Judge read the words aloud without expression: “We the jury find the defendant guilty of murder with malice, as charged in the indictment, and affix his punishment at death.” Judge Brown then quickly asked, “Is th
is unanimous. So say you all? Please hold up your right hands.” All twelve jurors did so.
In the courtroom, the crowd appeared dazed and confused as to how to react. There was no eruption of cheering and no sobbing. Reporters scurried to write their stories. Each hid emotion behind blank faces. Ruby’s sister Eileen, tears welling in her eyes, and his brother Earl bowed their heads. Ruby appeared dazed, a look of puzzlement and confusion apparent on his face. Had he really heard the words “affix his punishment at death?”
In her seat, Kilgallen gasped at the death penalty verdict. She continued to watch Ruby. Like Bill Alexander, she felt sorry for this condemned man. Ruby had killed Oswald, the most despised man in the world but execution was his fate.
Kilgallen’s eyes met Ruby’s. She shook her head. Handcuffed, Ruby left the courtroom. As he disappeared from view, Kilgallen told herself she would search for the truth. She was certain there had been a conspiracy. Typing quickly in the pressroom, she forwarded her report to the Journal-American. Then she headed for the hotel bar and a stiff drink.
On March 19, the Ruby family fired Melvin Belli.25 One day later, Kilgallen’s Journal-American “Voice of Broadway” column read, “The point to be remembered in this historic case is that the whole truth has not been told. Neither the state of Texas nor the defense put on all of its evidence before the jury. Perhaps it was not necessary, but it would have been desirable from the viewpoint of all of the American people.”
Nearly a month later, on April 14, 1965, Kilgallen was at it again headlining her Journal-American column with the daunting words, “Why Did Oswald Risk All By Shooting Cop?” Although the logic requires careful examination, the column proves she was continuing to question the “Oswald Alone” theory even after the Ruby trial had ended. Kilgallen wrote: